Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*

[eastmen]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227372

Sequential Access - Read up to 155 MB/sec

30GB capacity for $70.

Now the question is, can one get the price/performance of such a disk down to minimum $10, ideally $5 by the start of the next generation in 2011/2012?

In that $70, theres probably 50% markups between Newegg and the manufacturer, the Sata interface probably costs $5 so the actual cost of flash and packaging is about $30 im guessing. So the cost would have to come down by a third/sixth to be viable at the start of a generation.

Do you even need a sata interface. Would't usb 3.0 be more than enough ?

I also don't know what size we would need. 16 gigs would offer 2.3 times the storage as whats currently avalible on the 360.

Now you're just being obtuse, seriously. You just said so yourself a DVD cost 50 cents ."Penny" is synonymous with "cent." In this universe, 50 cents is not a dollar so therefore the cost of DVD is measured in pennies, not dollars. You could make the argument that a Mercedes price could be measured in pennies but that would be a retarded argument. Show me any legitimate ad, anywhere that lists the price in pennies. You can't because the price is measured in DOLLARS. How bout I just say that the cost of optical is measured in cents, not dollars. There, feel better now?

When someone says pennies they normaly refer to something thta costs a few pennies. Not 50 pennies.

Aside from that , 50 cents is not very far away from $1 and is much more than a few pennies. Bluray will of course cost more than that considering that article was written in 2007 basicly 10 years after the introduction of dvd. We are talking 2010 for a new xbox to 2012 which will be 4-6 years after blurays introduction.

Well duh. we all know that BD costs more than DVD. One of the major selling points for hd dvd was that it's production costs would be very similar if not identical to DVD because of the similarity of disc structure and that existing DVD lines could be used to replicate hd dvd. Yet in the link that YOU posted, hd dvd single layer is only $.15 less than a BD25. care to explain that?

The link doesn't talk about them using the hard coating nor factoring the fab costs. I'm sure all that was factored in into the hd dvd groups numbers.


I can't find any solid information on flash costs.

 

[eastmen]

I'd also like to add that if a 32 gig flash based system is in place for a next gen system offering almost instant load times I would be perfectly willing to spend $65 bucks on a game instead of the $60 current gen games are. Providing the cost of the set up would set publishers back $5 instead of the $1.xx of a bluray disc.

 

[AlNom]

As initial benchmarks of Intel's SSD have shown, not all SSDs are created equally... And certainly not cheaply at the high end.

 

[specwarGP2]

When someone says pennies they normaly refer to something thta costs a few pennies. Not 50 pennies.

So how would you refer to the cost of something that costs in the range of 10 - 50 cents? 10's of pennies? It works for dollars but I've never heard anyone say that for pennies and it sounds retarded.

Aside from that , 50 cents is not very far away from $1 and is much more than a few pennies.

is $500,000 not far away from $1 million too?

The link doesn't talk about them using the hard coating nor factoring the fab costs. I'm sure all that was factored in into the hd dvd groups numbers.

All BDs require a hard coating. It is not optional, so of course YOUR link isn't going to talk about the price of the hardcoat separately since it is already built into the replication cost.

What point are you trying to make with fab costs? Why would EA care how much DADC spent on BD replication equipment? The only cost EA cares about is how they have to pay DADC to replicate each BD. And from YOUR link, it shows that hd dvd SL is only $.15 cheaper than BD25. I'd say that's a pretty good argument for BD eventually reaching price parity with DVD, since that was one of hd dvd's major selling points.

 

[eastmen]

No, only you would think that. If someone meant to say a few pennies, then they'd say "a few pennies."

I'm not going to continue arguing. I've never heard someone say something costs pennies and refer to something more than 5 cents.

s $500,000 not far away from $1 million too?

When you have 500k 1m is not to far away from it now is it. Surely much closer than when you have just pennies.

All BDs require a hard coating. It is not optional, so of course YOUR link isn't going to talk about the price because it's the price is already built into the replication cost.

it may be mandatory but this guy never states at what point these prices are taken. his article was set out to prove that blu-ray wasn't much more expensive than hd dvd to make and when you reach a conclusion before you write something you will present the data in ways to prove your point.

So how would you refer to the cost of something that costs in the range of 10 - 50 cents? 10's of pennies? It works for dollars but I've never heard anyone say that for pennies and it sounds retarded.

Its a dime , its a quarter , its fifty cents. I never say its a few pennies. Never heard anyone say that. I've heard people say a couple of dollars or 20 or so bucks. But i've never heard someone say "Hey eastmen this cd is just dollars. Or hey eastmen this pack of gum is just pennies."

But really i'm done talking about this.

point are you trying to make with fab costs? Why would EA care how much DADC spent on BD replication equipment? The only cost EA cares about is how they have to pay DADC to replicate each BD. And from YOUR link, it shows that hd dvd SL is only $.15 cheaper than BD25. I'd say that's a pretty good argument for BD eventually reaching price parity with DVD, since that was one of hd dvd's major selling points.

My link shows nothing of the sort because thats just numbers for the cost at the fab. do you believe that none of these fabs will want to make money and the millions or hundreds of millions they spent to upgrade to bluray they never want to make back ?

Do you believe if I went to tdk and said I need 5m blurays with this home video on it , they would say well it costs me $1.30 to make the discs so just give us $1.30 to make it. no they will bundle in the cost of the fab and profits so they can build the next fab or expand that fab or actually make a profit . Now it could be a few cents on up that they add.

 

[specwarGP2]

IWhen you have 500k 1m is not to far away from it now is it. Surely much closer than when you have just pennies.

In what universe do you live where 100% more is "not that far away?"

it may be mandatory but this guy never states at what point these prices are taken. his article was set out to prove that blu-ray wasn't much more expensive than hd dvd to make and when you reach a conclusion before you write something you will present the data in ways to prove your point.

Isn't that what you're doing now? You used this guys data to back up one of your arguments, but it got flipped on you so now it's no good? That's intellectually dishonest and really annoying.

Do you believe if I went to tdk and said I need 5m blurays with this home video on it , they would say well it costs me $1.30 to make the discs so just give us $1.30 to make it. no they will bundle in the cost of the fab and profits so they can build the next fab or expand that fab or actually make a profit . Now it could be a few cents on up that they add.

If you placed an order for 5m discs, and the replicator told you $1.30 per disc, that's YOUR cost not theirs Use a little bit of common sense!!!!

 

[grandmaster]

The next gen consoles WILL have optical discs, end of story. It's monumentally obvious considering the investments Sony have made into their infrastructure. It's basically irrelevant discussing BD costs because Sony OWN the pressing plants already - the investment has been made. They pay absolute minimum costs as it is already - and those costs won't be available to peer at on the internet. We're talking cost of raw material, cost of overheads and successful yields from a pressing run.

Bottom line is that optical disc is the most convenient, cheapest method of getting games into homes: the kiosk idea is too fiddly, the cartridge idea - like it or not - IS too expensive compared to pressing a disc.

For Sony it is also a valuable mechanism in getting people to buy more of their optical discs (ie Blu-ray movies in which they have a HUGE vested interest). If BD takes off, Microsoft will need to follow suit. If it doesn't, MS may be better off simply adopting HD-DVD or even a red-laser derivative. The drives will be dirt cheap, duplication costs of games minimal, and piracy that much more trickier if there's no recordable media to buy.

The real question is where *can* SSD make a difference in terms of cost to the platform holder? The answer is most likely that it will replace the internal HDD with a modest-sized cache, while both platform holders cream it in by selling plug-in hard disks with mega storage for those that want them.

Selling games machines is a business, after all, not an exercise in producing the most technologically advanced games machine possible. Some might argue that it's Sony's pursuit of this policy that has put them into the unenviable position they are in now.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The next gen consoles WILL have optical discs, end of story. It's monumentally obvious considering the investments Sony have made into their infrastructure.

Well yes for Sony it's obvious, but not all are in the same position as them in regards to benefits or infrastructure. Nintendo might go for durable and user friendly carts with very short load times to further enhance the plug and play feature of the console image. Imo this could very well happen. Nintendo probably wouldn't even have to use the biggest carts.

MS is somewhere in the middle and they would benefit in many ways by using the carts, but it might be hard for them to abandon discs at this stage, backwards compability for one would be thrown out of the window, and the carts would be more expensive there is no denying it. Still the unit itself can be cheaper and smaller without the optical drive and the base model woulnd't need a HDD at all with carts. The Arcade model seems to be doing pretty good at the moment, which might incline Microsoft to pull something similar in next-gen also. In my opinion getting the SKU price down is more inportant than 5$? extra cost of a game, especially when you get benefits in the SKU and in the game (loading times and SKU size/price)

Basically what I'm saying is that there are too many upsides with carts that I personally wouldn't like to dismiss it completely at this stage, when we are still quite far away from the launch and it's impossible to know just how much the parts are going to cost in circa 2011 and onwards.

Sony probably don't have any other choice, but to go with Blu-ray, HDD and mandatory installs, which is not that plug and play, that in turn leaves some room for the competition to differentiate themselves.

 

[grandmaster]

Sorry I just don't see it. In the situation I describe, Microsoft would be paying for one SSD per console. This is far more advantageous from an economic perspective than paying for an SSD for every single game produced for the console, even factoring in the additional cost of an optical drive.

Nintendo won't go back to carts because they clearly make more money from games by using DVDs.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Sorry I just don't see it. In the situation I describe, Microsoft would be paying for one SSD per console. This is far more advantageous from an economic perspective than paying for an SSD for every single game produced for the console, even factoring in the additional cost of an optical drive.

Nintendo won't go back to carts because they clearly make more money from games by using DVDs.

It's not necessarily far more advantageous. If you gain competitive advantage and win the whole gen, because of being more casual friendly, better features and cheaper SKUs, then the hit taken on smaller profits (still big profits) on software might be justified. If Microsoft applies similar silicon budget as Sony, it would have significant cost advantage again.

It's not just one SSD per console and optical drive, atleast in the case of Sony and MS. you'd most likely need an HDD too, unless the internal SSD is quite big. In essence more complex harware, bigger powerdraw, more heat etc... The unit itself and the package is going to have to be bigger and more expensive through the chain etc.

If they did a study on some focus group and had two consoles running games and the other would have longish mandatory installs and still longer load times than the other console and asked would they rather pay 5-10% more for the more cconvenient experience, I wouldn't be surprised if many would pay, I would anyway, especially when I would know the other benefits aswell.

But hey I don't really know how cheap or expensive these carts would be to make in 2011 or is there some other valid ways to solve the upcoming loading time problems with cheap and convenient options.

 

[ban25]

MS is somewhere in the middle and they would benefit in many ways by using the carts, but it might be hard for them to abandon discs at this stage, backwards compability for one would be thrown out of the window, and the carts would be more expensive there is no denying it. Still the unit itself can be cheaper and smaller without the optical drive and the base model woulnd't need a HDD at all with carts. The Arcade model seems to be doing pretty good at the moment, which might incline Microsoft to pull something similar in next-gen also. In my opinion getting the SKU price down is more inportant than 5$? extra cost of a game, especially when you get benefits in the SKU and in the game (loading times and SKU size/price)

This whole flash/cart discussion is crazy talk, seriously.

 

[eastmen]

This whole flash/cart discussion is crazy talk, seriously.

So was bluray talk with the ps3 , they still went ahead and did it dispite its cons vs dvd for this generation

Sorry I just don't see it. In the situation I describe, Microsoft would be paying for one SSD per console. This is far more advantageous from an economic perspective than paying for an SSD for every single game produced for the console, even factoring in the additional cost of an optical drive.

Nintendo won't go back to carts because they clearly make more money from games by using DVDs.

There are alot of things to think about though. Bluray may be cheaper for more storage , but an ssd set up would be much faster thus allowing you to craft far more detailed and varried worlds than a bluray disc. You also have to factor inital costs. The price of the ssd device wont be the same through out the generation. however the bluray device would not only need the bluray drive but also most likely something to install to from the bluray drive which in the end would still be slower. Users would loose space on their storage device due to caching or even complete installs.

The whole console could be much smaller than the one with an optical drive and hardrive. The system would need less power and have more space for cooling and what not. You also have less moving parts thus less failures.


As for nintendo , if they go with an xbox 360 level console or even lower spec (who knows with those guys ) we already know that dvd can provide amazing games with that combination of hardware power. So nintendo would only have to go with 6-8 gig ssd carts for their next gen console. That would be even cheaper than what an xbox next would need. Once again for nintendo they would gain something extremely improtant and that is a kid proof storage device.

 

[ban25]

It's not necessarily far more advantageous. If you gain competitive advantage and win the whole gen, because of being more casual friendly, better features and cheaper SKUs, then the hit taken on smaller profits (still big profits) on software might be justified. If Microsoft applies similar silicon budget as Sony, it would have significant cost advantage again.

It's not just one SSD per console and optical drive, atleast in the case of Sony and MS. you'd most likely need an HDD too, unless the internal SSD is quite big. In essence more complex harware, bigger powerdraw, more heat etc... The unit itself and the package is going to have to be bigger and more expensive through the chain etc.

If they did a study on some focus group and had two consoles running games and the other would have longish mandatory installs and still longer load times than the other console and asked would they rather pay 5-10% more for the more convient experience, I wouldn't be surprised if many would pay, I would anyway, especially when I would know the other benefits aswell.

But hey I don't really know how cheap or expensive these carts would be to make in 2011 or is there some other valid ways to solve the upcoming loading time problems with cheap and convient options.

If your platform media cost is one or two orders of magnitude higher than the competition, you can bet that's going to cut into your margins, not to mention drive away publishers. Do you really expect the industry to go back to the days of expensive and capacity constrained ROMs? The transition to optical media revolutionized distribution by allowing publishers to press tens of thousands of copies of a game within days of gold master. If a game turns out to be a bigger hit than expected, no problem, more discs are only a week away. Likewise, if a game bombs, then at least the publisher hasn't spent millions on media that will have to be buried in a desert.

I know you guys are trying to dream up some revolutionary new distribution model for games, but you're staring at it in the face -- the internet.

 

[eastmen]

If your platform media cost is one or two orders of magnitude higher than the competition, you can bet that's going to cut into your margins, not to mention drive away publishers. Do you really expect the industry to go back to the days of expensive and capacity constrained ROMs? The transition to optical media revolutionized distribution by allowing publishers to press tens of thousands of copies of a game within days of gold master. If a game turns out to be a bigger hit than expected, no problem, more discs are only a week away. Likewise, if a game bombs, then at least the publisher hasn't spent millions on media that will have to be buried in a desert.

I know you guys are trying to dream up some revolutionary new distribution model for games, but you're staring at it in the face -- the internet.

The internet in the USA is not ready yet and wont be for a long time. There are still large amounts of people out there on dial up in the states.

As for cutting into your margins. It depends on how much and if the industry can stand an increase in prices again. If they cna stand a $5 increase at retail then I don't see the problem if the cost of ssd is less than $5

As for capacity contrained , it may end up being optical disc that is constrained at the end of the next generation. It hasn't failed since i bought my first memory stick card of 64 megs that capacity has at least doubled each year and i've been able to get that size increase for the same price as half the size the year before. If that stands up through even the first year or two of next gen we are looking at 128-256 gig ssd capacitys vs the 25/50 of bluray. Now sure we've heard of higher capacity bluray discs , but each layer will make the disc more expensive and if its the same as dvd each layer will be read at a slower speed than the previous layer and there will be a performance drop for acessing the next layer and switching the beam to read it.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

If your platform media cost is one or two orders of magnitude higher than the competition, you can bet that's going to cut into your margins, not to mention drive away publishers. Do you really expect the industry to go back to the days of expensive and capacity constrained ROMs? The transition to optical media revolutionized distribution by allowing publishers to press tens of thousands of copies of a game within days of gold master. If a game turns out to be a bigger hit than expected, no problem, more discs are only a week away. Likewise, if a game bombs, then at least the publisher hasn't spent millions on media that will have to be buried in a desert.

I know you guys are trying to dream up some revolutionary new distribution model for games, but you're staring at it in the face -- the internet.

I'm not dreaming about anything or even stating, I'm just speculating on different possibilities...
Digital distribution will not reach everybody soon enough. I'd welcome digital distribution with open arms though. They could allow people to download games before the release date and just activate the game when it's time, that way the download speeds wouldn't be such an issue. Perhaps they could sell them digitally for a price and then add few dollars for the cart version

 

[3dilettante]

As for cutting into your margins. It depends on how much and if the industry can stand an increase in prices again. If they cna stand a $5 increase at retail then I don't see the problem if the cost of ssd is less than $5

The additional cost per unit of $4-5 is not made up merely by adding $5 to the retail price.
That would only cover the media costs for each copy that is actually sold.
The cost of unsold inventory is made much higher, which means sold units must be priced higher to compensate or must sell in vastly higher numbers.
High media costs would make anything short of blockbuster volumes untenable.

I'm also wary of the possibility of e-waste fees or taxes in the future. Disposing of massive numbers of big semiconductor chips might be a big fat regulatory bullseye for big movers of physical media.

 

[eastmen]

The additional cost per unit of $4-5 is not made up merely by adding $5 to the retail price.
That would only cover the media costs for each copy that is actually sold.
The cost of unsold inventory is made much higher, which means sold units must be priced higher to compensate or must sell in vastly higher numbers.
High media costs would make anything short of blockbuster volumes untenable.

I'm also wary of the possibility of e-waste fees or taxes in the future. Disposing of massive numbers of big semiconductor chips might be a big fat regulatory bullseye for big movers of physical media.

Why , you can simply reflash the rom with new data if the title proves to be a dud. With a bluray disc you just have to scrap the discs. As a matter of fact if a title proves to be a poor seller and another title from the same publisher proves to be a hit they can reflash the poor seller roms with the new game and push them out.

There can also be other cost savings through the pipeline for an sd type set up. You can create a game case the thickness of a bluray case and a height and width smaller than a ds case. This would mean you can ship many more copies and transport many more copies at a reduced cost . Retail space will also free up allowing older titles to stay on store shelves longer even if they aren't as big of a seller. Currently titles move off the new section of the store shelves quickly and are not put up again unless they are a greatest hits title or stay longer if they are a first party title or a title selling well. Also it can cut down on piracy if you create an ultra fast ssd type of set up. It will prevent thieves from being able to copy the speeds offered. Then of course you get the savings on the console it self and of course a smaller retail foot print means that stores like gamestop can keep more in stock (this is a big deal if you've ever been in the back of a gamestop). Also stores like bestbuy can also carry more. You then have reduced shipping costs on the unit itself . Customers will also like a device that takes up less space than other devices. One ofthe things my parents love about the wii is that we can fit 4 of them in the space of the ps3 with room to spare.

On a $60 game . gamestop / bestbuy normaly make $5-7 bucks. That leaves $53 left. Another 10-15$ goes to marketing/shipping/disc costs/box art/ box costs. Leaving $28 or so left for publisher , platform holder , developer. If you can increase the price by $5 while chipping away at the $10-15 going to marketing , shipping , box art , box costs. You can make room for what could cost as low as $1-5 for the ssd.

 

[specwarGP2]

Why , you can simply reflash the rom with new data if the title proves to be a dud. With a bluray disc you just have to scrap the discs. As a matter of fact if a title proves to be a poor seller and another title from the same publisher proves to be a hit they can reflash the poor seller roms with the new game and push them out.

First of all where do you get the idea that reflashing is even viable? Do you have any examples of widespread reflashing? It seems very labor intensive to me, and it would be pointless anyway because these reflashed games could never be sold as new since technically they are refurbished products.

So not only does the flash media cost more, you have to pay to reflash games that bombed to recoup the media costs, and those reflashed games have to be sold at a lower price than new games. Now why would a publisher want to go with flash again?

 

[Squilliam]

The additional cost per unit of $4-5 is not made up merely by adding $5 to the retail price.
That would only cover the media costs for each copy that is actually sold.
The cost of unsold inventory is made much higher, which means sold units must be priced higher to compensate or must sell in vastly higher numbers.
High media costs would make anything short of blockbuster volumes untenable.

I'm also wary of the possibility of e-waste fees or taxes in the future. Disposing of massive numbers of big semiconductor chips might be a big fat regulatory bullseye for big movers of physical media.

The initial cost of the disks would not be significantly higher than Blu Ray once royalties are paid if the console manufacturer is willing to take a lower cut on the software whilst the technology evolves and instead profit on the hardware.

Also if Publishers believe that the SSDs can solve a bigger problem to them of the used game market in places like Gamestop, they will be all for it.

A. They can include DRM preventing the continued resale of the disks. So therefore they can put a stop to this costly practice (For the publishers)

B. They can give the market what they want. If you could buy a blank disk and pay say $10-20 to a Kiosk or store you could rent games to completion and not worry about the time they take to finish or even coming back to return the game. An answer to some of the reasons why the used market exists which is actually profitable for end users and all retailers who participate.

As for the issue of the cost of the SSDs, I believe it should be possible to recycle them anyway and get half the cost back, much the same way that when they take back unsold disks they get the royalties back from the console manufacturer.

 

[eastmen]

First of all where do you get the idea that reflashing is even viable? Do you have any examples of widespread reflashing? It seems very labor intensive to me, and it would be pointless anyway because these reflashed games could never be sold as new since technically they are refurbished products.

Well I don't see a problem with an ssd device. They are rewritable. With the speeds I sugested earlier it would take seconds to reflash the device. As for them being refurbished it depends if they ever left the plant. Do you consider a tv that was created but never left the plant and found to have a bad firmware and updated to be a refurbished product ? do you think that the company making those tvs consider it refurbished ? They will be sold as new to retail. Same with a car that is found to need a recall. Any that haven't been sold yet and have the recall fixed aren't considered refurbished and have the costs cut.

Not to mention that consumers will never know.